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Jul 8, 2015Why Make Sense? smooths out Alexis Taylor and Joe Goddard’s longstanding, ever-evolving musical partnership and collective existential quandaries into an album as polished as Larry Levan’s disco ball, and their most cohesive as well.
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Jun 24, 2015Why Make Sense revels in ‘80s dance, R&B, hip hop and pop throughout straddles between sheer musical delight and melancholy as the upbeat music balances earnest lyrics.
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Jun 16, 2015This is dance music, handmade.
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MagnetJun 8, 2015More than enough to make this probably the finest dance-party record this summer will have to offer. [No. 121, p.55]
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Jun 4, 2015Stylistically, it's more of a grab-bag than ever before, occasionally tipping the scales from charming to bombastic.
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May 26, 2015Why Make Sense? is another branch of the band’s tree, an album of infectious pop riddled with bigger questions and dilemmas that ripple well beyond the dance floor.
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MojoMay 20, 2015The logical progression for a band who know exactly what they are doing. [Jun 2015, p.87]
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May 20, 2015Six albums in, Hot Chip are still making stunning pop records filled with a barrage of dancefloor wonders that are packed with heart and soul. That's enough to show why we still need Hot Chip in our lives.
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May 20, 2015Why Make Sense? is probably the fourth-best Hot Chip album. But that’s not necessarily a knock, because their fourth-best album is still a very good album.
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May 19, 2015Six albums in, Hot Chip doesn’t really have much to offer in the way of surprises, but with such strong songwriting and a languidly sexy mood tying it all together, it doesn’t need to.
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May 19, 2015It’s goofy, yet sexy, accessible and experimental, and often all at once.
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May 18, 2015Despite all the allusions, the songs aren’t trapped in revivalism. Part of Hot Chip’s charm has been its combination of intelligence and ingenuity with a self-conscious reserve.
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May 18, 2015Their message is most vibrant on the most danceable songs, such as "Dark Night" and "Easy to Get." It all adds up to a potent reminder that when it comes to life and music, you can't have a future without a past; on Why Make Sense?, Hot Chip explore both in confident and exciting ways.
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May 18, 2015Why Make Sense? is a stripped back affair, an album of emotionally intelligent, lithe, pared back R&B.
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May 18, 2015In revealing some of their insecurities, Hot Chip have reminded both themselves and us of their importance and relevance, and have made a record of both sense and sensibility.
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May 18, 2015Why Make Sense? executes one of the band’s strongest selling points: their ability to marry the physicality of a rock gig with the colorful sonic palette of electronic music.... Yet as it often happens when a group refines a well-established sound, there are many cases on Why Make Sense? where things feel a bit too comfortable for their own good.
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May 18, 2015Why Make Sense? finds the London indie house outfit more or less as they always have been, with only minor aesthetic variations disrupting the dulcet flow of their electronic pop. Those variations, though, are beguiling.
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May 15, 2015Why Make Sense? is a consistently engaging album by a band that has successfully reinvigorated their sound.
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May 14, 2015Banger-free, perhaps, but gloriously avant garde and fiercely inventive.
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May 14, 2015Focused, domestic, deep in thought. It's as anti-complacent as pop music gets.
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May 13, 2015This is the first Hot Chip album that channels the appeal of their live show. There’s no need to go out. They’ll bring the club to you.
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May 13, 2015Not only is there too much going on in each song to think of them as simple pop numbers, but Why Make Sense? touches upon a huge range of styles.
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May 11, 2015Why Make Sense? is the electronic fivesome's characteristically polished, generously tuneful tribute to wearing your heart on your sleeve.
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May 11, 2015Unlike previous Hot Chip records there is arguably no definitive “single”, but a coherent collection of ten songs that burst at the seams with ideas and hooks, and provides some of Hot Chip’s most gorgeous pop songs to date.
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May 1, 2015Stripped back to basics and muttering against the machines, they've never come on so strong.
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Q MagazineApr 29, 2015Why Make Sense? is a meaty electro-grooving celebration of love, hope, dancing. [Jun 2015, p.101]
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UncutApr 29, 2015Open-hearted vulnerability is what sets them apart--the desire to be cool dissipates with age, leaving them to restore funk, the album's major underpinning, to its maximalist glory following years of sublimation from bedroom musicians. [Jun 2015, p.76]
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Apr 27, 2015With total belief in their worth, they re-introduce stylings seldom seen on contemporary dance albums, where mood and atmosphere too often trump melody and songcraft.
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Apr 27, 2015Why Make Sense? is a record painted in broad strokes. There are optimistic bangers – that lead single has a scintillating build, taking the listener ever upwards, with Alexis Taylor’s falsetto laced over it; even for Hot Chip, it immediately sounds like a floor-filler. But there are also slow jams.
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Apr 27, 2015Why Makes Sense? is as sloppy as it is polished, with conflicting ideas pushed up against each other, with a design that brings the picture as a whole into focus. [Apr-May 2015, p.83]
User score distribution:
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Positive: 42 out of 51
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Mixed: 7 out of 51
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Negative: 2 out of 51
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Jun 7, 2015
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May 20, 2015